Question

What information can the labor supply curve give you by itself (no other curves)? Assume that we do not know how competitive the labor market is.

Group of answer choices

Level of employment

Number of workers who are willing to work at a given wage

Quantity of labor supplied at a given wage

Marginal cost of workers' time

Marginal cost of labor

Opportunity costs of workers' time

Cost of hiring one more worker

Answer 1

Answer

The labor supply curve by itself gives us the following information;

Number of workers who are willing to work at a given wage

Quantity of labor supplied at a given wage

The labor supply curve shows the number of people are willing to work at a given wage rate. The labor supply is directly related to the wage rate. Thus higher the wage rate, the higher is the quantity of labor supplied.

The following figure shows the relationship of wage rate (W) and the labor supply(L_S).

-Labor

In the above figure, the curve L_S represents the labor supply curve. When wage rate rises, the supply of labor also rises. Thus,L_S is positively sloped. From the figure we see that when wage rate is W₁, the quantity of labor supplied is L₁. Thus at the given wage rate W₁, the L₁ number of workers are willing to work.

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